Hey, the first thing to do is treat the log like a puzzle. Don’t touch the bytes—just copy the raw hex or base‑64 into a separate file. Then run a quick frequency count on the characters; mainframes often use a small set of control codes that will show up as spikes. Look for repeating sequences of length 4‑8; those are likely field delimiters or fixed‑width columns. If the log has timestamps, you’ll spot patterns of “00:00” or “1970” that can anchor your analysis. Once you have a suspected structure, use a simple regex or a small script to extract those fields into a CSV and see if the columns line up. If they do, you’ve uncovered the layout without ever altering the original data. If you hit a wall, try a sliding window approach—shift the pattern by one byte and see if a cleaner alignment appears. This keeps everything intact while letting the hidden order reveal itself. Good luck!